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Flame Creators Trip Self-Destruct Command

Published Date 6/8/12 7:34 AM

Symantec researchers report that the creators of the Flame malware toolkit issued a so-called “suicide command” earlier this week to have it remove itself from some infected computers. Symantec observed the command using honeypot computers specifically designed to observe Flame and said the command removed all Flame files, then overwrote their locations in memory with gibberish to stymie researchers investigating the infection. Symantec claims the code was written in early May. Meanwhile, in an address before a security conference in Tel Aviv, Eugene Kaspersky of Kaspersky Lab, which discovered Flame, said this sort of cyberterrorism is frightening. “It’s not cyberwar, it’s cyberterrorism, and I’m afraid it’s just the beginning of the game ... I’m afraid it will be the end of the world as we know it,” Kaspersky said. “I’m scared, believe me. … Flame is extremely complicated but I think many countries can do the same or very similar, even countries that don't have enough of the expertise at the moment. They can employ engineers or kidnap them, or employ ‘hacktivists.’” (BBC)(Computerworld)(Symantec Security Response Blog)(Reuters)

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